Friday Five

​1. I hate to be that bragging parent. But. Y’all. My baby slept SIX HOURS last night. In HER CRIB. From 7:30 to 1:45. And she fell asleep on her own after (ten minutes) of (light) fussing. There was no acrobatic rocking and shushing for 30 minutes on my part. The old Simone Biles level of difficulty floor routine (Olympics reference #1) that it used to require to get her to fall asleep at night was replaced by our short and sweet bedtime routine (bottle, books, quick rocking session, then down in the crib). Naturally I spent the next 6 hours convinced she had stopped breathing. I sent the husband in at 10 to check and he reported back that she was breathing and wiggling, but still SLEEPING. Without her in the bed beside me I slept on my stomach for a solid couple of hours, something I haven’t done since the early months of my pregnancy. When she woke up around 2 I brought her in bed with me to nurse (I know, I know, but we’re not doing full on sleep training yet so we’re taking baby steps, plus I kind of missed her). Who knows if she will repeat this tonight or tomorrow? We may still have a long road ahead of us on this sleep journey (cue inspirational music), but, BUT, this is progress. My daughter is not going to sleep only in 2-3 hour increments for the rest of her life, which I really was starting to think was a true possibility. After an absolutely hellacious 4 month sleep regression when it seemed like sleep was imploding entirely, we are moving forward. There is HOPE people.

I am a big fan of thematic clothing choices for babies.

2. Olympic fever has hit. And it has hit hard. It’s amazing how much Olympics you watch when you have an infant in your home and don’t leave the house all that much, particularly at night. I have watched sports I barely knew existed, and I’ve gotten into them. Like yelling at the TV levels of into them. Like Aly Raisman’s parents level of into them.

Like Michael Phelpsian level of intensity before a race into them.

I”m all in. It’s hard not to love watching incredibly talented people do the things at which they are best in the world. I’ve watched almost everything (including things like rugby and water polo) but my favorites are swimming and gymnastics. Likely because of how the USA dominates. There’s something about the Olympics that really brings out your inner sense of raging nationalism. USA USA USA! The athletes are great and all, but I will say that my favorite part about the Olympics so far might have been the dancing arrows from the opening ceremony.

Those singing and dancing neon arrows killed it. For the entire opening ceremonies. Which is like 17 hours long. You would think a normal person’s enthusiasm would waver at some point, maybe when obscure countries like Nauru or Liechtenstein make their entrance with their grand total delegation of 2 athletes. But these were not normal dancing arrows. These were OLYMPIAN dancing arrows. They boogied and shimmied all the way from Albania to Zaire and earned a world’s respect in the process. ​

3. I made the (somewhat misguided) choice to check out Wegman’s the other evening. I went right around 5pm which is probably the worst time to go there besides on a weekend, but I was on my way home and needed to pick up dinner. I also figured it had been open a few days so hopefully the lookie loo’s had thinned out a little. I was dead wrong. The place was still packed to the point that there were Henrico police officers doing crowd control. I had the baby in the stroller and she was sleeping so I darted in and out as quickly as possible and didn’t really have time to take in the whole place, but what I saw was very impressive. I went straight for the sushi and am very impressed at the level and quality of what I saw for a grocery store. I also ended up grabbing like 5 things because there was a huge crowd behind me and I panicked, because I could sense people grumbling about the woman with the enormous stroller bogarting all the good sashimi. I look forward to going back in a little while when things calm down some. Because nothing brings out my inner cranky 80 year old woman than a crowded grocery store. I typically leave Whole Foods in a rage blackout whenever I go there.

4. I organized all of our important papers this week and it was incredible. If you don’t think that sounds incredible then you don’t know me very well. It has been KILLING me that all of our papers and important documents are just scattered willy nilly throughout our house. I have been dreaming of an organization system to put everything in its proper place, with major categories like health subdivided into smaller categories like medical bills, insurance documents, etc. (if you didn’t already think it, nerd alert). I got a file cabinet from Target and dove in. The above photo is before. And the after:

Okay so I realize that a file cabinet is a little anti-climactic when it comes to a big reveal. But it makes my neat freak personality really, really, really happy.​

5. So yesterday one of my blog posts was published on Pregnant Chicken (!). I honestly cannot even believe it, because during my pregnancy Pregnant Chicken was one of my favorite sites and it’s still somewhere I go for funny, kind, non-judgmental parenting articles. I submitted the post without much hope that they would actually want to run it, and the fact that they did just makes me incredibly happy and excited. I don’t write for a living, but it is without question still my passion in life. It fulfills me in so many ways. That’s why I started blogging again, because I desperately missed writing on a regular basis. It has always helped me process how I feel about things, which is so necessary as a new mom, and it also sustains the creative part of my soul, which I had kind of neglected for a couple of years. So not to get too sappy, but it just makes me really proud to have something I wrote on this little blog published on a much bigger and more widely seen platform. And hopefully people reading this came here because they saw my post on Pregnant Chicken, which is even better because I would love to reach and engage with more people out there through this blog. So if you’re here for the first time, welcome 🙂 I hope you don’t mind a slightly irreverent take on life, lots of punctuation marks, and gratuitous levels of baby pictures.

I discovered your blog from pregnant chicken and have enjoyed reading your posts way past my bedtime! Absolutely love your down to earth nature and I love that you seem to have it together, yet are so humble and witty in your writing. I’m an orthopedics RN with a 3 month old little girl and just returned to the night shift. Feel like you’ve been able to put into words all the crazy feelings I’ve had these last few months. Motherhood is SO hard and rarely do I hear others express the challenges that I’m sure we’re all facing! My friends here in Seattle are those “cool parents” that go to wine bars, make it look so easy and we can’t help but compare ourselves and feel inadequate! Thank you for your honesty and making me feel like I’m not “crazy” for having a tough time adjusting to being a first time momma.

Reply

Liz

8/14/2016 06:59:00 am

Hey Carrie! Thanks for reading and commenting! I’m so glad to hear you can relate to the struggles of first time mommyhood. It is HARD right? And I can’t imagine doing it while doing night shifts! I did nights before having Ryley but am not currently doing them because I switched to PRN. I would imagine it is brutal with a baby and you are a hero for doing it! I’m so happy you found the blog through prengant chicken and hope to hear from you again! Good luck with your sweet baby and with those night shifts!